One Person. One Vote. Counted As Cast.

Audits, Recounts, Paper Trail

All mission-critical systems must have strong auditing procedures. Current audits are too weak, especially with absentee ballots. Recounts are too expensive, hence way too rare. They should be free if the race is moderately close.

Ideally, we need to be 99% confident that the decision represented by the vote count reflects the will of the voters.

Counties should post computer and human-readable detailed precinct reports on the internet at regular intervals on election night and throughout the canvas period.

Auditing of just 1% of precincts leaves open too many possibilities for cheating, especially in small counties. (Please see the spreadsheet provided below)

When there is a difference between what the paper audit record shows, and what the machine total shows, the paper record must prevail.

When there are differences, the important question to ask is, what are the odds that the differences might have changed the outcome of the race.

In some states, there is no trigger threshold that would require further auditing or a full manual recount (aka "escalation"). This needs to be defined by regulations or law.

In my opinion, any candidate in a close race should be able to select additional precincts to be audited.

It would be good practice to separate the officials auditing the election from those running the election.

Governments should study the feasibility of hand-counting or auditing paper ballots/records in the polling places before delivering them to the county headquarters.

The voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) provided with DRE's are very difficult and extensive to use in auditing because the records for each ballot are kept on a roll of paper. In order to recount votes, officials need to cut each ballot record off the roll of paper.